The ‘Secret’ To Work-Life Balance For Entrepreneurs

Ready to hear the secret to achieving optimal work-life balance as a crazy entrepreneur? The secret is…there is no secret.

Work-life balance doesn’t exist if you’re trying to build a killer, worldwide business. The word ‘entrepreneur’ is used pretty broadly, so I thought it would be good to segment them.

1. The ‘lifestyle entrepreneur’.

call people who leave their job (and asshole boss) to start a small business ‘lifestyle entrepreneurs’. They have a flexible schedule and chilled lifestyle. They either work alone or have a small team that’s easy to manage who are typically all in one location. They have plenty of free time with their partner watching Netflix, play recreational sport on the weekends, and have more than three friends.

Lifestyle entrepreneurs tend to be freelancers or owners of boutique online stores. They have the freedom to pick their hours, work from home, and have a great work-life balance.One huge misconception is that people believe lifestyle entrepreneurs can’t earn much money. Wrong. You can earn thousands a week doing this, with very little stress and lots of time for Game of Thrones.

2. The crazy, “I’m going to change the world” entrepreneur (‘scale entrepreneurs’)

This option is much harder. Building a scalable business that solves a big problem in the world means you’ll have more stress, a big team, and very little free time. The hours are damn long. Expect 12+ hour days for five to seven years.

Don’t believe the hype about startups becoming easier as you grow. I don’t know who started that rumour but I’m not happy with them. It’s certainly not all personal assistants and helicopters. Do you think it sounds more stressful to be doing graphic design in Bali for five hours a day or managing a team of 120 staff, who are all relying on you for their livelihood? I think the answer is pretty clear.

Scale entrepreneurs are always working. There is no switching off. Though the people suited doing this love it this way. We’re the ‘addicts’ of the business world and we couldn’t think of anything worse than retiring.

3. The ‘traditional business entrepreneur’.

I’ve never liked the elitism surrounding the word ‘entrepreneur’. We’re all business owners. We’re all entrepreneurs. The plumber who finds a way of streamlining his business in a new way. The cleaner that hacks together her own cleaning equipment to nail hard to reach places. They are all entrepreneurs.

The traditional business approach is obviously much lower risk than trying to scale fast-growth startups, but there is nothing wrong with that! If you’re tired of ‘working for the man’ and want to take control of your life without entering the hectic startup space, than this is the perfect choice for you.

I know plenty of people making sweet dosh building businesses that aren’t too innovative or sexy, but I can tell you now, they don’t give a f**k. Financial freedom is financial freedom.

The takeaway

All entrepreneurs are awesome. Whichever path you choose, you’re creating something from nothing. And that shit is cool. Just be clear about what type of entrepreneurial path you are choosing before you dive in so you can set you (and your family’s) expectations from day one.

How To Become a CEO by 24 Without Going to University

At the ripe age of 24, I had stumbled into being the Co-founder & CEO Pitchblak, while also being a shareholder in a decent stable of tech startups. Although it initially felt like I was moving along at a normal pace, I was continually asked how I got to this stage so quickly and at such a young age.

I wasn’t handed anything on a platter to get here, but there were some distinct things that made quite the difference in my journey.

Not going to university helped (A LOT!)

I’m 110% sure if I went to university, I wouldn’t be where I am today. While most my friends were studying and traveling for four to five years, I was knuckling down and learning by getting my hands dirty.

I don’t believe the uni model is completely redundant. I understand university is necessary for some professions. I certainly wouldn’t want to have a brain operation by some self-taught kid in a garage.

Though for anything business or marketing related, the uni system is totally broken. There’s way too much theory, and not enough doing. I even had this mindset right back in high school so I didn’t apply for university.

After graduating school, I immediately started applying for jobs and mistakingly ended up in the world of sales.

Learning to communicate a point effectively was a key part of my personal development. I also met tons of people from all different walks of life. This had a huge effect on me as I learned so much about how to relate to a vast range of personalities – a skill I’d later find out was vital to my success.

Working my ass off

In entrepreneurship, hard work trumps skill. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, you have to be prepared to work at least ten times as hard as the average person (in hours and output), otherwise, you simply won’t make it.

It’s an emotional rollercoaster…there were so many times I considered calling it quits to do something easier. The key to being a hard worker is not feeling sorry for yourself. It’s human nature to feel down when you’re at the office late at night knowing your friends are drinking beers and watching Game of Thrones.

The trick is to be aware of these thoughts and to cut off them off the second it starts happening. You’ll notice your working habits get easier once you start to see the hard work turn into tangible success. These wins are the ‘coke hits’ entrepreneurs thrive on.

The challenging part though is making it through the rough patch in the beginning of your journey where the small wins feel so small that they’re almost unnoticeable. You need to back yourself and realise with enough hard work you’ll get to the point where the ‘small’ wins will be things worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Taking risks

I didn’t have to take risks a huge as some of the entrepreneurs I know well to get to this point, but I sure didn’t take the comfortable route.

Even when I worked for other people, I wouldn’t choose the safe option that paid me a steady salary. I wanted my income to reflect my results. I started this approach at the age of 17 which made it so much easier for me to continue on this path throughout my entrepreneurial career.

If you always choose safety over risk it will be harder for you to leap off the once you’re ready to start your own thing.

Pouncing on opportunities I wasn’t ready for

Putting my hand up for opportunities I wasn’t ready for before owning my own businesses, I would argue my way into management roles way above my reach.

I was fortunate to have a few influential people in my life that gave me opportunities I wasn’t technically ready for. They saw a fire in my eyes and were willing to bet on me.

When you get solid opportunities, you need to deliver. I didn’t talk big only to get the role and take my foot off the pedal. I knew I was punching above my weight which made me push harder to get real results. By the time I was 20 years old, I had built a sales team within an ad agency from 6 people to more than 100 staff reporting to me.

I had no idea what I was doing but somehow I made it work. Always remember you will never feel ready for the awesome opportunities that life throws at you. So if ‘feeling ready’ is your key metric for making the decision to put your hand up, you’ll likely miss all the big shots.

Knowing I wasn’t good at everything (or much at all!)

Ego kills success. When someone thinks they’re incredible, they don’t ask others for help. If anything, I think my strongest skill has been the ability to recruit these amazing people to join our company’s ‘crusade’.

I knew I had to master recruitment as I wasn’t talented enough at most the technical skills needed to grow a business. This doesn’t mean I didn’t learn about each function though. A great CEO understands the ins and outs of each function within their business.

I read a lot of books and did online courses to teach myself how each part of a business worked so I would know great talent when I saw it and how to manage my team effectively. It’s also hard to gain the respect of your team if you don’t understand the tasks you’re asking them to perform.

There are some critical skills you will need though as a CEO which you can read here.